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Jury orders Samsung to pay Apple $119 million for patent infringement

In a verdict handed down last Friday, a federal district court jury in San Jose, California held Samsung, Inc. liable for violating various Apple patents in the design of the Samsung Galaxy S2, Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy Stratosphere smart phones. Observers of the long-running patent legal war between Apple and Samsung, however, are describing Friday’s verdict as a hollow victory for Apple as the net $119.6 million fine imposed by the jury amounts to less than ten percent of the $2 billion damage award sought by Apple. Capping three days of deliberations, Friday’s verdict concludes a month- long trial on alleged infringement of Apple iPhone and iPad patents that cover “slide-to-unlock,” universal search, automatic word correction and other ease-of-use features. The jurors also considered a related Samsung counterclaim that accused Apple of violating two Samsung patents in the design of various iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch products. In the end, the jury ruled that Apple had violated one Samsung patent in the design of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 and thus awarded Samsung $158,400 in damages, to be subtracted from the amount awarded to Apple. (Samsung had earlier asked the court to impose $7 million in damages.) Notwithstanding the low damage award, a spokeswoman for Apple praised the jury’s action as she emphasized to reporters that “we are fighting to defend the hard work that goes into beloved products like the iPhone, which our employees devote their lives to designing and delivering for our customers.” Meanwhile, as he vowed to appeal Friday’s verdict, counsel for Samsung declared: “we are vindicated that, for the second time in the U.S., Apple has been found to infringe Samsung’s patents.”

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